A New paleoclimate record for North Westland, New Zealand, with implications for the interpretation of speleothem based paleoclimate proxies

Abstract

New Zealand speleothems can be used as proxy records of terrestrial Southern Hemisphere climate change and can be compared to records from the Northern Hemisphere to evaluate the timing of significant climatic events, and the driving influences of the Antarctic and North Pacific. The interpretation of paleoclimate from stalagmite geochemistry is a complex process. The majority of stalagmite records from New Zealand are based on calcite stable isotope composition, however, recent research into stalagmite trace element composition has shown that multi-proxy records aid paleoclimate interpretations. This thesis presents a new high-resolution paleoclimate record based on stable isotope and trace element composition from a West Coast, New Zealand, stalagmite